


of words and voices

by suhoya



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Kotonoha no Niwa AU, M/M, Mild Angst, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4587069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suhoya/pseuds/suhoya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There hasn’t been a sincere smile on Tsukishima’s face in a long time. Perhaps the summer rain might bring it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of words and voices

**Author's Note:**

> kotonoha no niwa (garden of words) AU.
> 
> (there are dead poets society references too because..... poet kuroo. that is all.)

* * *

 

 _In a perfect situation,_  
_at the end of our fate_  
_Each person’s scar goes_  
_into each’s fate_  
_It’s made into a memory,_  
_the quiet scars_  
_To each’s fate,_  
_to each’s fate_

Busker Busker - [Love is Timing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WYc6bzmleU)

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m home.”

 

 _Home_ is a word that should stand for a cozy place, where you could feel at ease, when your limbs are eager to drop into the couch after an intense day of work, and there is a sense of belonging.

Instead, it was nearly six o’clock in the aftermath of yet another rainy day with the condensed, unforgiving heat of summer inside narrow and cheap walls.

It was hard to breathe, sometimes.

“Ah—Kei,” he heard Akiteru’s voice coming from the kitchen. As he walked closer, a heavy smell of stew numbed his senses. “You came just in time, dinner’s ready.”

Kei passed by, heading to the even smaller bedroom where he dropped his bag carelessly, hitting the floor with a loud thump.

There was no couch for him, not even a proper bed. The futon was tightly folded inside the wardrobe, otherwise he would step on it every time he entered his room. But even without a bed, his room was still cramped. Wherever he looked around, there were only piles of books and folders, full of papers, notes, articles, research. Not in an orderly, interesting way, but in a caging one.

His uni life was suffocating him.

“Kei! Come here!”

His brother called to him again, and he followed his voice back to the kitchen with a resigned, slow pace.

“Just leave it there and I’ll eat it whenever,” Kei said, leaning by the doorframe and trying not to sound too tired.

“I promised mom to look after you properly. If she sees you’ve lost even half a pound, she’ll notice. Anyway, gotta go—” Akiteru babbled on without looking at Kei, seemingly in a rush. “See you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

“Yeah… have a good night, brother.”

Akiteru smiled and rustled Kei’s already messy hair caringly when hurrying past him.

A few seconds later, the door was shut.

Kei inhaled deeply, as if he had been holding up for too long, and then exhaled, a drained breath coming out from his lungs in search of freedom, but it only broke the surrounding silence that Kei dwelt in every single day.

 

 

***

 

 

Studying Medicine in Tokyo had been Kei’s perfect dream for years.

 

Akiteru had, probably, 99% of the blame in that – being the life role model to Kei since he was a child -, excelling in his high school days.

«Brother! Did you pass that anatomy exam you said it was a piece of cake?»

(‘Haha, I never said that, Kei. But yeah, I aced it.’)

«Did you really examine a heart today? A _human_ one??»

(‘No, Kei, it was a cow’s, this one. I’m still a high school student, we don’t do that yet.’)

«But why can’t I go with you to the science museum?? I wanna go!»

(‘Kei, it’s a school trip. Siblings can’t come with us. I’ll take you some other day.’)

 

(But he never did.)

And he never examined a human heart, either. Maybe he didn’t even examine a cow’s. Not even a frog’s.

 

The Tsukishima family was modest and happy, one could say. A fruitful marriage with two handsome, promising boys.

The oldest one, Akiteru, was preparing for the admission exams when Kei was barely 10.

During that period, Akiteru spent a lot of time in the library, studying even more right after his cram school. Kei always waited for him anxiously at home. A rush of steps on the wooden floor would be heard as his brother came back every evening with a more exhausted, grim face as days went by.

But Kei was happy, and proud, and ignorant.

 

 

 

 

 

7月11日

{July 11th}

 

Kei had started to skip class in the mornings since the beginning of July.

The first time he simply walked around campus, hit a nearby café and revised his books and notes there, sometimes simply listened to music through his headphones, thinking about nothing.

By the third day, he knew he needed somewhere to actually _breathe_.

He changed subway lines and stops, and headed to Shinjuku instead. When he exited through the station gates and walked his way through yet another shower of rain, he was welcomed by the overflowing presence of the National Gyoen Park.

Once inside, he was nothing but surrounded by thick, healthy vegetation – all kinds of trees in all shades of greens. Wet soil that made his feet sink through each step. Cool breeze, smell of grass, jagged raindrops.

When he found himself free enough from the noise of city background, and guarded by nature instead, he came across a distant bridge, leading to what it seemed a forgotten gazebo.

Kei let himself stroll more slowly while crossing the bridge, his eyes roaming at the beautiful extension of the lake. Even when being pierced by the rain, it stayed majestic.

The small, wooden gazebo was in quite a hidden spot, which served perfectly to Kei’s intentions. He closed his umbrella and laid it by his side. He dropped his bag on his other side.

He sat down, and then, only then, he took a long, deep breath.

 

 

 

The rain didn’t cease for a single second.

Kei had been sitting there for about an hour probably –he didn’t check-, with no activity other than listening and watching the rain fall.

He thought of reading, studying there – it should be a nice place, after all. It _was_ a nice place, truly. But that was his first day there, so why should he ruin it by facing the thing he was running from.

A dark silhouette began to form beneath the canopies of trees which led the footpath towards the gazebo.

It was a man, holding a red umbrella, head ducked. He was dressed semi-casually, semi-formally (white shirt and tie but dark jeans), and he was wearing a briefcase crossed around his chest with a strap. It looked similar to Kei’s or anyone’s messenger bag, but there was something about it –probably the leather material and the person who was carrying it- that claimed it wasn’t like the others’ and so it should be more accurately referred to as _briefcase_. Businessman, probably, were Kei’s thoughts.

Certainly, the man didn’t expect anyone to be under the gazebo, because he looked startled when he saw Kei.

Kei met his face straightaway, and he was the one surprised now, because the man wasn’t really as old as he expected. He didn’t seem to be even close to thirty. He now understood the umbrella’s strong choice of colour and the _crossed_ briefcase. Rather formal, yet still some evidence of early adulthood.

The man bowed his head at Kei politely before sitting at the other end of the bench. The structure of the gazebo was square-shaped, so they were kind of facing each other, if Kei turned his eyes to his left.

The man opened his bag next to him and searched into it, retrieving some book and some kind of journal.

 

 

Minutes passed by, with the same rain, and the same wind.

The man had stopped reading after a while– he also had written some notes here and there under Kei’s drifting glances here and there. Just like Kei, he switched to the calming activity of observing the rain drop restlessly against water and leaves.

Kei checked his watch for the first time since he arrived to the gardens, and well, those had been quite the shortest two hours he’d experienced in a while.

He finally stood up and grabbed his things back – umbrella and messenger bag. Before leaving, he stuck his hand inside the bag to take his headphones out. Once he touched hard plastic, he pulled out bumpily, headphones followed by their usual tangled trail of wires. He pulled even harder for the player to stick out as he began to walk away. The music player came out as there wasn’t any more tightness at the end of the wires, and before Kei switched the device on, he heard the man’s voice.

“Hey.”

Kei turned around, only to find the man hunched over the bench reaching to him, object in hand. There was a vague smile on his face.

“Dropped it.”

Kei sank his eyes to his hand – the man was holding his wallet, which contained his student ID and transport cards. He glanced at his open mess of a bag. Of course.

He took his wallet after muttering a faint ‘thank you’.

The man turned back to the bench, leaning against it with his arm over the wet wood, and he lost his gaze somewhere beyond the lake splattered by the rain.

 

“ _Too short the lovely summer night…_ ”

 

Kei had already taken a step forward, but the sudden words from the stranger made him stop in his tracks. He wasn’t sure he had understood what the man had said, and he didn’t know why he had stopped in the first place when it was clear it wasn’t about him. Perhaps the man was already coming to an inebriated state, talking to himself, judging by the empty can of beer by his side.

Even so, for a couple seconds, Kei didn’t move. The measured, rhythmic man’s voice resonated in the air, only echoed by the pattering rain.

 

_“Too soon this passed away;_

_I watched to see behind which cloud_

_The moon would chance to stay,_

_And here's the dawn of day.”_

([x](http://sacred-texts.com/shi/hvj/hvj037.htm))

 

Nothing made sense in that moment, and although the reflection of raindrops marked a new cycle, everything stayed the same for Kei.

The splashing sound of his footsteps on the puddles accompanied him until he left the park.

 

 

 

 

7月12日

 

The next morning also welcomed more rain.

Kei didn’t mind, he was starting to get used to it, even tolerate it. It was doubtfully a valid excuse for missing class again, but Kei didn’t care.

When he arrived to his sacred place from the day before, it was already occupied.

The man was sitting in the same spot, one leg crossed on top of the other, and one foot moving sideways, in a merry swinging motion. He looked the most comfortable there by himself.

Well, Kei also liked this place, so he was going to have to stick up for it.

When Kei got closer and the man noticed him, his eyes turned again to that startled expression of one who sees something that doesn’t match whatever there’s on their mind.

“Kids your age don’t go to school these days?”

His voice sounded bored, tired, like he was making an effort to make conversation against his will. Nobody asked him to speak, and certainly didn’t Kei.

He dropped to his same spot, too, at the end of the bench.

“Excuse me, but, shouldn’t men _your_ age be at work?”

Because, really, shouldn’t he?

A lazy, half smiled formed on the stranger’s face.

“Touché,” he answered, and looked away towards the rain drizzle breaking into the stillness of the lake. “Ah… youth… so sharp these days.”

He made it sound like he was an old man, when he probably matched his brother’s age.

There was a long pause in which Kei thought the small talk was over. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

“Tsukishima uses the _kanjis_ of _moon_ and _island,_ right… It makes sense,” the man murmured to himself, completely out of the blue. “Names say so much about ourselves, don’t you agree?”

He asked the question without turning, with his gaze still lost somewhere beyond the lake that surrounded them, the same way he spoke to him the morning before.

Then, Kei realized the man had called him by his name. How the hell did he know?

“What do you mean?” was his inquiry. He was more interested in _what_ rather than _how_.

“The moon symbolizes so many things… for example, it’s always there although it’s not always seen. It looks harmless, but it’s capable of causing tides… and turn people into werewolves,” he said with a smirk, and to that, Kei frowned, wearily. “But the most important thing is that it may be cold and lightless, but when it glows it’s even more striking than the sun. Don’t you think?”

Kei’s face softened. He remained quiet.

“As for islands… they’re hard to reach. They’re completely surrounded by deep and agitated waters.”

“For how long are you going to keep psychoanalyzing me?”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Kei wished his glare were enough answer. The man seemed to grasp it after letting out a short chuckle. “Forgive me. Occupational hazards.”

Kei raised one brow. “You’re really a psychologist?”

“ _Psychologist_?” he echoed with an amused voice. A quick wave of hand. “No way. Teacher, instead.”

Ah. Well, not that different after all. Kei had always had teachers all over him, pressuring him to keep his high grades on record, to keep on the right track. Blabbering about what was best for him, when most of them didn’t know a single thing about his well-being. Absolutely nothing.

Teachers were the same dummies with different masks, programmed to repeat the same things all over again.

“We should be in class,” the man said in a flat voice, like those words weren’t his.

Kei seemed to catch the message – that he’d read into him. But he only tilted his head and turned his eyes to the trees.

It would be very impolite to stand up and leave, probably. That was what Kei wanted to do in that moment, despite the fact that he was comfy in there, even with the stranger next to him. The only thing he despised was talking about himself. He didn’t want to answer any questions, he didn’t want to tell his life. It wasn’t interesting, it wasn’t worth it.

Luckily, the man didn’t speak up again, and minutes went by in silence, only accompanied by the usual rainy background. After a while, perhaps it took ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, the teacher got up, briefcase crossed and umbrella in hand.

Kei glanced at him sideways and saw how he was standing still with his eyes closed. With an expression of calm and serenity, he began to recite.

 

 “ _The cuckoo's echo dies away,_

_And lo! the branch is bare_

_I only see the morning moon,_

_Whose light is fading there_

_Before the daylight's glare._ ”

([x](http://sacred-texts.com/shi/hvj/hvj082.htm))

 

This time, it was the stranger's footsteps walking away the ones which echoed the rain.

 

 

 

 

7月15日

 

Meeting him under the gazebo every morning quickly became a routine.

The small talk also came tightly attached to that routine. Questions popped up effortlessly. Thankfully, they weren’t extremely personal.

Kei could finally put a name to the man’s face, not that he was keen on knowing it anyways, but manners were due. ‘Kuroo’, he said to him, dryly. He didn’t tell him his first name. Kei didn’t mind. He wasn’t sure whether he knew his, either.

Kei had to acknowledge that he was a Medicine student, though. Kuroo asked why he wasn’t attending. Kei shrugged, almost unnoticeably.

“Afternoon classes, then?”

“Afternoons,” he confirmed, “and mornings,” he added.

“You don’t strike me as the one who’d cut his lectures.”

“Same applies to you. Skipping work or afternoon shift?”

Kuroo laughed as if he had heard the best joke in a very long time.

“Nobody _skips_ work, kid,” the condescension in his eyes irked Kei. “Let’s say I was fired because of my… unorthodox methods.”

A soft snort. “Figures.”

“Oi, _rude_.”

There was more rain that morning, too.

 

 

 

 

7月21日

 

After a reasonable amount of days seeing Kuroo, Kei began to realize why the man visited the park regularly, and especially the hidden gazebo.

As the day they first met, Kuroo was immersed in his own personal bubble there.

Kei finally understood where the things Kuroo had recited to him came from – purely vocational. He was specialized in literature. And Kei could clearly confirm so – Kuroo spent a lot of time either writing in a journal or reading. Sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in what Kei assumed was English.

That new, rainy morning of late July, Kuroo was already sitting on the wooden bench when Kei arrived. He was so focused jotting down on his journal that he didn’t hear Kei until he spoke.

“Which one is it today?” Kei asked as a greeting.

Kuroo looked up instantly, and the corners of his mouth curled upwards when he saw Kei.

Kei closed his umbrella and sat down, meanwhile Kuroo seemed to consider different possibilities in his mind, evoking verses and words, until he squeezed his pen again and started to write delicately.

Kei, totally not meaning to, observed Kuroo while he was writing – his eyebrows slightly frowned, a sign of concentration, and his mouth stretching into an almost smile. It became obvious he enjoyed this.

Half a minute later, Kuroo ripped out the page and handed it over to Kei. His handwriting was immaculate, thin and gentle but smearing strong personality under each cursive letter.

Kei read in silence.

 

_I hate the cold unfriendly moon,_

_That shines at early morn;_

_And nothing seems so sad and grey,_

_When I am left forlorn,_

_As day's returning dawn._

([x](http://sacred-texts.com/shi/hvj/hvj031.htm))

He snorted, very low, almost inaudible amongst the sound of rain. He didn’t expect Kuroo to hear it, but he did.

“What?” Kuroo said, visibly offended. “It’s a beautiful, old Japanese _tanka_.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Also – it’s poetry. You are supposed to read it out loud,” he added, a hint of accusing tone showing off.

Kei realized this man was more persuasive without even trying than he originally might have guessed. Without a concrete reason behind why he followed his words, Kei recited the poem.

It actually felt way prettier on his tongue than it did in his mind.

Kuroo was observing him with a slight, smug smile, flashing teeth as some sense of pride.

Kei tried to hand him back the paper soon after what it seemed to start feeling as a burn on his cheeks, but Kuroo pushed his hand away.

“Keep it. Poetry is non-refundable.”

 

 

 

7月27日 

 

“Say, Tsukishima-kun…” Kuroo began, and Kei was sure nothing interesting was going to come out of that cheeky mouth. Besides, his nonchalant pose, childish even, of his hand underneath his jaw only confirmed Kei’s guesses. “Would you give me your number?”

Exactly, nothing interesting at all.

“And why would I do that?”

“’Cause,” he continued, raising his arm, keeping with the casual manner, “imagine one day you don’t show up. Neither the next one, nor the next. Keeps going until a week or so. I can’t live not knowing if you’ve been murdered, boy.”

“…Or I might stop coming just because,” Kei contrasted, and Kuroo thought he finished there when he actually didn’t, adding a last sentence instead. “Just because I have a life to carry on.”

Kuroo grinned in amusement, leaning back against the bench. He propped his elbow on the edge, and his fist rested against his temple, contemplatively. “Well, in that case I’d like to be aware of that, too.”

Kei held his stare, attentively - scanning that gloating expression he was starting to get used to quite often.

He gave up. Fidgeting into his messenger bag, he grabbed his phone.

Kuroo, smile of victory at full sight, did the same and put out his from his pocket. Kei uttered the numbers with the lifeless excitement of a voicemail, and Kuroo tapped into his screen diligently behind a low chuckle. Kei wasn’t probably going to repeat it.

Kei was waiting for a missed call and then select his number, but Kuroo, as annoyingly unexpected he appeared to act most of the time, sent him a text instead.

 

**From: XXX-XXXXX-XX-XX [9:07]**

_Marvelous. Can I register you as my voicemail?_

 

A glance that could cut through his own glasses was answer enough.

Kuroo waited in anticipation for Kei to save his contact.

“What name did you type in?” he asked when Kei seemed to return his phone to his bag.

Kei was going to answer that he left it as unknown, when in fact he didn’t. He should have. “Kuroo-san,” he said eloquently. It was so obvious he almost groaned.

“Hmmm,” Kuroo grimaced with a disapproving hum. “May I change it?”

He waved his fingers and open palm before Kei. Kei sighed and handed him his phone.

Within a few taps, he gave it back.

Kei frowned at what the contact ID had changed to.

“ _O’ Captain, My Captain_?” he pronounced as best as he could.

“What? It’s a classic.”

Kei ignored the questioning look behind his answer, and asked again about such term. “Does it mean anything?”

Kuroo’s eyes narrowed, half skeptical yet amused. “Really, _Glasses_?” Kei flinched at hearing such nickname. “I’m afraid you’re in dire need of some extra lit classes.”

Kei blew air out of his mouth, with the patience capable of reaching unknown levels, and tried to readdress the subject.

“What did you name mine?”

Kuroo smiled again.

“With your good brains, I’m sure you can guess.”

 

 

 

 

8月5日

 

August holiday break arrived at last, and Kei discovered that he didn’t have to skip any more lectures – therefore, he didn’t have reasons to visit the park.

His midterms didn’t turn out really _bad_ , but they weren’t really _good_ , either. Kei lay just there, in the middle.

In the middle of nothing.

Regardless, he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the daily routine –actually he _did_ know-, he walked through the same places he did during July’s mornings. Step out of the subway, cross the street, enter the park.

Meeting with Kuroo.

Meeting with Kuroo had become that odd routine, petty conversations at first glance, but which hid something more. Like a ritual, an escape from reality, a shelter.

 

That day was the first day they left the park together. It was always one first, and then the other would leave minutes later. Perhaps with no particular reason whatsoever – simply, none of them followed each other’s steps.

Perhaps that was what entailed having lunch together as well. Two bowls of ramen that warmed their soggy clothes.

 

 

 

 

8月15日

 

Because of holiday season, they would get later to the park. It wasn’t first thing in the morning anymore, not even second. It was almost lunch time, and without speaking about it previously, some kind of tacit agreement seemed to have sparkled around Kei and Kuroo when they both showed up with _bentos_ full of food.

Hours passed by with the calm swiftness of every other day. Minutes of conversation, of study, of Kuroo craning his neck over the book Kei was reading and mumbling _What the hell is that_ when looking at pure tissues and cells images, of Kei snickering at Kuroo to stop murmuring endless poems.

They had come to the point in which both knew when it was the time to leave, stuffing their belongings to their respective bags in unison. That afternoon, they wandered a bit around the gardens before leaving, and stopped by another secluded corner with the guarding canopy of an old maple. The lake lied ahead of them, swallowing thousands and millions of raindrops.

They could do nothing but admire.

 

 

“Are you still going to skip classes after the break?” Kuroo had asked him.

“I don’t know,” Kei had replied.

None of them looked away from the lake in a while.

 

 

Once they were outside the park, Kuroo lit a cigarette. Kei knew he smoked – he had seen the edge of a packet poking out his briefcase, sometimes. However, this was the first time he actually saw him smoking one.

They were standing again side by side, under a metallic roof by the perimeter of the national park.

Kuroo inhaled deeply, savoring the nicotine.

“Didn’t you apply for Medicine to fulfill what your brother couldn’t?”

Kei was taken aback.

Right, Kuroo was threading back to their earlier conversation. He shouldn’t have told him that much. He should’ve shut up.

But Kuroo’s question chimed in his head.

He probably did. Or at least some of Akiteru’s wishes had impregnated Kei since he was a kid. Yeah, it was probably that. It’s not like Kei really had a passion for such career path, in the end.

“He must’ve rubbed off on you some of that interest, at least,” Kuroo continued. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have joined such high-principled studies, would you?”

“I’m not doing this for him. I’m not doing it for anyone, not even for myself. I’m just- doing it,” Kei met quite an unconvinced look from Kuroo. He bit his lower lip. _What_ was so hard to understand? “Perhaps the only reason is to be able to show a good degree in your résumé at the end of the day. That’s what matters nowadays.”

Kuroo was listening carefully to each of Kei’s resentful words, cigarette in hand. He gave it long, thoughtful drags while Kei wasn’t speaking.

He sighed, a blurry cloud of smoke spreading around.

“Your brother… he’s going to feel so disappointed.”

“… Guess that runs in this family.”

His reply was charged with bitterness and dryness. He couldn’t avoid it, cover it up. He could only channel it through a voice that scratches himself and rubs salt into an open wound.

Kei can forgive; in fact he already did, had there been something to forgive. But what he can’t do is to forget. He can’t erase that memory, no matter how hard he tried, and even though he buried it in the deepest place of his head, it would always find a new crack to squeeze through.

Kei doesn’t know what to do to stop it from hurting.

“Don’t you think you should let people help you?”

Kuroo’s voice was warm, and broke the anxious silence that Kei had trapped himself in.

“Helped by _you_?”

Again, on the defensive. Again, the sarcasm stress. As soon as he let it out, he knew it was wrong, and yet, it was a piece of him.

“Wow, okay. You don’t have to spit it like that, though.”

Kei lowered his head – he felt something pricking inside him before Kuroo’s offended face. He let his eyes follow the smoke trail that came out from the cigarette Kuroo was holding between his fingers, ashes burning and falling whenever he shook it.

Kuroo gave it another deep drag and exhaled, pondering.

“It’s just that… if you want to be a doctor, you know. Doctors help people. They cure them.”

“Not always.”

“Not always,” he repeated carefully, “but that’s their job. They do it the best they can, just like anyone else. But they’re also people, and sometimes, they also need some help.”

Kei dared to look again at Kuroo, but he tried to soften his gaze.

“You sound utterly unimpressive telling me all this with a cigarette in your hand.”

He knew he had been soft enough when Kuroo laughed, even wryly. That made Kei relax – he barely realized how his shoulders had stayed awfully tense since they had been outside.

“Nothing escapes from your pretty eyes. I like that about you.”

“You have your teacher habits… I guess I have a doctor’s, somehow.”

“You know there are doctors who smoke, right?” Kuroo asked in a way it was rather a statement. Kei knew it was a statement.

“So there are teachers who don’t give lessons in life all the time. But those are harder to find.”

“You leave me speechless, _Tsukki_ ,” he answered, and with that he walked to the corner bin and put out his cigarette in the ashtray on top of it. “If you’d like to stop talking about it… there’s that. Forgotten. I know you’re like the moon, with a hidden side,” the crease of his lips stretched with empathy. “But, sometimes, letting things out makes us feel better. Like a hundred times better.”

Kuroo had gotten closer, standing right next to Kei, both their backs against the building's wall and shoulders almost grazing.

“You _reek_ of tobacco.”

Kuroo seemed surprised by the obvious, eyes widened in a funny way. His expression changed swiftly though, and with a brief bow of his head, he whispered right into Kei’s ear, “Sorry, _Doc_.”

 

 

When they were about to part ways – Kei down the subway, and Kuroo some place through the damp streets – Kuroo spoke up.

“If you’re still cutting class, you can do it at a professor’s.”

Kei turned around. Kuroo was standing by the pedestrian crossing, awaiting. His umbrella covered half up his face.

When the traffic light flashed green, Kei followed him.

 

 

 

Kei hadn’t imagined where Kuroo was supposed to be living, but if he had had, it would’ve been nothing like the reality he was facing.

It was quite a modern apartment, without much furniture but the essentials.

Sunbeams cut through the wide picture window in the living-room/kitchen.

Walls were a pastel shade of orange, impeccable. Or maybe they were snow white and the sun painted them.

A small couch, a low table. Piles of books and folders here and there – _that_ , Kei could’ve guessed.

Nothing else was there because nothing else was needed.

Kuroo switched on the coffee maker, water starting to boil with muffled gurgles.

Kei’s eyes sank into a book lying on the couch’s armrest. He grabbed it and took a look at the cover.

“Ah, _Leaves of Grass_ ,” Kuroo pronounced from the kitchen counter. “Favourite of mine. Have you read it?”

“We didn’t read much in English class. I’ve never heard of it before, actually.”

“Well, too bad, it’s an American classic. I hated it the first time I read it, but as many other things in life, as years go by and you get back to it, you end up somehow understanding things… differently,” Kuroo confessed, his feline eyes glancing at Kei’s hands, holding his book with slight interest. The coffee was ready and he handed Kei a mug full of it at the same time he said, “Flip around the pages and read something for me.”

Kei cocked his head. “What? Why?”

“Quit the whining and do it.”

Kei had sat down on the floor and he groaned anyways. He placed the mug carefully on the floor, and with free hands he brushed his fingers randomly around those yellowed pages that smelled nothing but middle earth, at least.

He stopped at whatever, and skimmed through until his eyes caught on a short stanza, because clearly he wasn’t going to read a full page just because Kuroo requested it (actually, when it was more of an order).

 

“ _What do you seek so pensive and silent?_

_What do you need camerado?_

_Dear son do you think it is love?_ ”

([[9](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1322/1322-h/1322-h.htm#link2H_4_0026)])

 

Kuroo was listening with his eyes closed – a sight Kei had grown used to wherever poetry filled the air. It was somewhat a calming view, Kei began to consider.

He waited, internally hoping he wouldn’t have to continue reading.

“Nice passage, that one,” Kuroo murmured, eyes still closed. He then opened them and his intense gaze fell upon Kei. “You chose well.”

“I didn’t choose anything. It was random.”

“Right. Well randomly chosen, then.”

He took another sip from his coffee mug, and the room went quiet.

 

 

Kei wasn’t aware that a different type of silence could exist besides the one he met every afternoon, alone, at home. A silence that didn’t fall onto his shoulders like a heavy block of stone.

A silence that melted harmoniously into a shy sunset through the windows. A silence that smelled of strong coffee and echoed of foreign poetry.

A pleasant silence, in company.

 

 

 

That night, when he was back to his caging room, lying on his futon, Kei received a text.

**From: O’ Captain My Captain [22:47]**

_Thanks for today. Don’t skip class from now on._

_My answers to what you asked:_

_The proper words_

_The right voice_

_The truth_

 

“What the-“

Kei couldn’t help but mumble out loud while staring at the phone screen. Kuroo didn’t text him much, a non-recurring habit he thanked, but when he did, it was always some kind of metaphorical poem Kei couldn’t figure out.

He didn’t ask Kuroo a single question that day. What was he talking about, why was he always so cryptic?

Kei hated it, and yet, he couldn’t shake the thoughts off his head.

 

 

 

 

 

9月15日

 

August break was over. Summer days were quickly slipping away.

Kei and Kuroo still met under the gazebo. It was still raining, but less and less every time.

 

 

 

 

9月16日

 

“Have you found any job?”

There was a long pause.

“I have. Just… Not here. Not in Tokyo.”

That was good news, finally finding a new job.

Kei didn’t understand why he didn’t seem to like Kuroo’s answer, then.

“You haven’t skipped any more classes, right?”

Kei didn’t wait to answer.

“I haven’t.”

“Good,” Kuroo concluded.

 

 

 

9月17日

 

It was the first day Kei wasn’t completely sure if Kuroo would appear.

He wasn’t completely sure of the reason behind that thought. Behind that fear.

He wasn’t sure at all whether he was afraid of something in the first place.

 

And no, he wasn’t fully aware of that until his tall figure emerged amongst the green background, which blended with the wind and the rain through a whispering breeze and reluctant drops.

He thought it was a beautiful image, and he wouldn’t mind to keep seeing it day after day.

 

 

 

 

9月20日

 

Kuroo’s apartment felt almost like a second home. _Almost_ , because it was probably too late already.

 

“You sleeping?” Kuroo asked.

 

Kei was resting on top of the low table in the middle of the room. His arms crossed, as if hugging himself.

 

“Tsukishima, I’m leaving.”

 

His voice was raw, lack of emotion. It wasn’t his usual tone.

A couple of seconds passed. Kei didn’t move – he expected to feel Kuroo’s hand on his hair, softly, or patting on his shoulder, or maybe whispering close to his ear… but he didn’t.

Kei opened his eyes abruptly by the sound of the door closing. He realized then the true meaning of his words.

 

 _Kuroo had left_.

 

 

 

 

9月21日 

 

Kei didn’t see Kuroo the next day. Basically because he didn’t leave his room.

It didn’t rain that day.

 

·

·

·

·

· 

 

 

Kei woke up by a familiar sound against the walls of the apartment. He hurried to the living-room and glimpsed at the window.

It was raining.

He supposed it was early morning – Akiteru was dead asleep in his own room. He’d probably had a busy night serving at the izakaya.

Kei didn’t lose time, dressed himself in a minute and headed out.

He had forgotten his umbrella but he didn’t go back.

 

 

There was something completely different when the rain fell into his hair and shoulders. It was free and refreshing.

He wondered why he hadn’t done it earlier.

 

 

Kei wasn’t surprised when he found the gazebo dead empty. Still, he walked towards it, dragging his feet even though they didn’t sink in the soil anymore.

 

There was something on the bench.

There was a stone on top of a maple leaf and some kind of yellowed paper.

 

And there it was, his unique handwriting, thin and delicate, on a ripped out journal page, smudged by the rain. Even so, Kei could read what it was written on it, so clearly as if it was printed. So clearly as if he was reciting beside him.

_Now I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found nothing mightier than they are,_

_And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place._

_O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?_

_Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,_

_As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe._

_All waits for the right voices;_

_Where is the practis’d and perfect organ? Where is the develop’d Soul?_

_For I see every word utter’d thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms._

_I see brains and lips closed—tympans and temples unstruck,_

_Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,_

_Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, forever ready, in all words._

_(Leaves of Grass 151.[Voices](http://www.bartleby.com/142/151.html))_

 

It was a nice, compelling farewell, Kei thought. An unspoken confession.

Kuroo’s voice, latent in every single word marked by running ink.

 

Kei didn’t expect it any other way.

 

 

For the first time in months, Kei smiled. Sincerely, because of hope.

And perhaps it wasn’t only hope but something else entirely, which he couldn’t properly name - it was a warm, cozy feeling in his chest nonetheless, and to Kei, that was more than enough.

 

 

He would say the right words out loud – soon, one day.

And Kuroo would be the first one to hear them.

 

·

 

·

 

·

 

9月 22日

{September 22nd, end of summer.}

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic in april and look when it’s finished, ugh. I was very self-conscious about writing Tsukki so I apologize if you find him ooc. or Kuroo. I don’t even know, I just had this kurotsuki idea for a very long time and I had to finish it, better or worse. I live for the canon in which Kuroo (along with Bokuto, Akaashi, Yamaguchi) made Tsukki truly enjoy volleyball, to find his true purpose and leave aside the phantoms of the past. And at the same time, I wanted Tsukki to help Kuroo, too. Hence, I translated that into this AU. I think kotonoha no niwa story was the perfect setting for it.
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading <3 The ending is my favourite part. Sorry if it feels somewhat open? Though I don’t think it is (definitely not if you've watched KnN). Nah, not at all.


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